Between the holidays and the unusually cold weather, I’ve been baking up a storm.

Now, I love baking cookies, but after all the Christmas cookies I made, I wanted to make something different. Since I don’t like cake, I decided to try breads (pies are okay, but I find pie crust more frustrating than fun).

Now I have lots and lots of cookbooks, however, over half of them are for desserts and cookies and sweets. I discovered I really only had a couple good resources when it came to bread.

First was the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. This is this first book I grabbed of the shelf when looking for a specific bread recipe (such as the Challah I decided to make over the holidays). This is a very good all purpose book. The recipes always turn out well (unless I make unexpected substitutions without planning ahead), and they always taste good. I use King Arthur flour in my baking, but any quality flour will work fine I’m sure. Of course the advantage of using KAF, is that you don’t have to worry about regional variations in the gluten levels of the flour.

From the Baker’s Companion I made Challah and Italian bread, both of which turned out very well.

An advantage of those recipes is they called for all purpose flour. Yes, you can make substitutions, but if the recipe calls for one type of flour, you’re always better off sticking with that kind of flour. This is of course an advantage if you don’t bake frequently, and are unlikely to use the bread flour before it goes bad.

Now if you like lots of pictures, this is not the book for you. There are a handful of pictures, but for the most part this is your standard cookbook with very few pictures. Not that there’s anything wrong with this, it just means this book isn’t as pretty as some of the others out there.

As far as the recipes, they’re simple, and I very much like the way the recipes are laid out: all the ingredients are listed at the top, and if an ingredient is used multiple times, it is listed multiple times. Since I have a habit of leaping before I look, I find this very useful.

The next book I grabbed was a Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman. My aunt & uncle gave me this book for Christmas several years ago, and my pizza dough is based upon the recipe in this book.

The first chapter is dedicated to discussing different baking techniques, ingredients and tools. Most good baking books start this way, but it’s actually important to know how the author does things–especially if you don’t measure your ingredients by weight.

There are plenty of pictures here, showing everything from end results to intermediary steps. And they’re not just gorgeous pictures, but pictures of foods it looks like a normal human could bake. (I love Baking with Julia, but the photography only serves to make the book more intimidating, and I almost never use that book out of fear.)

The recipes are clear, and there are plenty of side notes, explaining different tricks or asides.

As I said, I very much like her pizza dough recipe and techniques, and have used that recipe for quite awhile. I also decided to branch out and tried her “BLT Bread” loaf. That turned out extremely well, and Grandmom particularly liked that bread. We made grilled cheese sandwiches from this bread, and they were fabulous. I also tried her cinnamon bread recipe, however, I attempted to substitute white wheat for all purpose (which I have done with several recipes from KAF) and although the bread tastes fine, it didn’t rise much, so that was somewhat disappointing. But again, that was the fault of the baker rather than the recipe.

And finally, I ordered The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, which I am slowly working my way through. He goes into great detail regarding technique, and I am learning a lot, but it is a bit overwhelming. Nothing like a good book to make you feel like you know nothing.

So that’s what I’ve been reading. And unlike most of the other books I read, these are leading to so fabulous and delicious results.

I read a lot of books this year. 147 books to be precise (unless I read another book today making it 148, but that seems unlikely).

I found several new series that I quite enjoyed:
The comic NYX, is a slightly older series that tells the story of three teens who are trying to deal with their mutant status.

Another comic I enjoyed was Madame Xanadu.

Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series was made into a comic with Mercy Thompson: Homecoming. It tells how Mercy came to the tri-city area.

Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler is a supernatural fantasy that is quite different from others out there, as the creatures are more out of folklore than horror.

I also stumbled upon Soulless by Gail Carriger, which is a Victorian fantasy with vampires and werewolves. I love Victorian settings.

Rob Thurman started a new series (at least I hope it’s a new series) with Trick of the Light. I love Trickster characters, so she was going to have to work to not make me like this book. She also had a new book in the Cal Leandros series out, Deathwish.

Faith Hunter’s Skinwalker series was a nice surprise, although I was less enamored with her Rogue Mage series.

If you have not read Sergi Lukyanenko Night Watch series, this is a good time to go back and do so, as Last Watch just came out in English.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines–a nice twist on fairy tale characters. Not quite as good as Fables, which also has a new volume out, with The Dark Ages but both are very good.

Several good anthologies came out in 2009 as well. Mean Streets was one of my favorites, with stories by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Thomas E. Sniegoski. With the exception of Laurell K Hamilton’s story (which I didn’t bother to read), Never After was another good anthology, with stories that are twists on the happily ever after theme. The anthology Strange Brew has stories by some of my favorite authors, including Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, and PN Elrod. One of the things I love about good anthologies is they introduce me to new authors, and this series gave me Faith Hunter and her character jane Yellowrock.

Of course I read far more books than these, and lots of books that had been published in previous years, but these are my highlights of 2009.

Check ’em out!

I recently read a fabulous supernatural fantasy called Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler.

Just go ahead over to my book blog and read what I had to say about it there.

Sometimes I get in the mood for a specific type of book. Recently, it’s been mysteries. But not cozies. Sorry cozy authors. My grandmother may love you, but you’re generally not my thing. I’d much rather have blood and guts and action. Kinda like the opposite of my life.

Anyway.

In my search for something I like, I stumbled upon Dana Stabenow‘s Kate Shugak series.

I’d read anthologies edited by Dana Stabenow, but had no idea she wrote mysteries, so when I stumbled across A Taint in the Blood I decided to pick it up and see if I liked it.

I did.

Kate Shugak lives in “The Park” in Alaska. Earlier in the series apparently she lived in Anchorage working for law enforcement, but at the point I wandered into the series she’d moved back to Niniltna and was working occasional investigations as her services were needed.

She’s a strong and independent woman who decides what she wants and goes after it. My favorite kind of heroine. She’s got flaws, and she recognizes this fact, but doesn’t let that keep her from being herself.

She’s also not afraid to bend the law in her search for justice. That always makes for an interesting moral dilemma when well done.

The secondary characters are also well done–they are distinct personalities, and I can usually tell by the dialog which characters are which. Always a strength in any book.

Now I’ve got a thing about series. I don’t often like to go backwards in a series (unless the series is written in such a way that book order is immaterial) and seeing that there were Bad Things in Kate’s past made me even more reluctant to go back in the series. However, after having read forward as far as I could, I decided to go back to just after the Very Bad Thing and work my way forward. That worked out quite well, except for the fact that I am now, once again, out of Kate Shugak books to read.

Grandmom hasn’t read any of these books yet, and I’m not sure if she will or not. There is boinking–although not a lot, and it’s not an all consuming part of the story. I think she might like them though; we’ll have to see.

The other nice thing about this series is that you can easily pick up any book and start the series. Kate does grow and change through the series, but you are given enough background that you don’t get lost without knowledge of what has gone previously. Again, another sign of good writing.

I have no idea how her portrayal of Alaska is–Dana Stabenow obviously loves where she lives–and I almost don’t want to know, because the mysteries are thoroughly enjoyable, and if they’re not as good as I hope, I don’t think I want to know.

Kate Shugak: Midnight Come Again (2000), The Singing of the Dead (2001), A Fine and Bitter Snow (2002), A Grave Denied (2003), A Taint in the Blood (2004), A Deeper Sleep (2007)

A couple months ago I picked up a supernatural fantasy with one of the best covers I’ve seen in a long time, Faith Hunter‘s Skinwalker.

There, see? Isn’t that fabulous? That is not a woman who needs a man to care for her, not matter what life (and un-life) throw at her.

Kudos to Roc who manages usually has very good covers for its fantasy books. But I’m not here to talk about covers–I just like to point out excellent covers when I come across them.

Skinwalker is about Jane Yellowrock, a vampire hunter and a skinwalker–the only one of her kind as far as she knows. She’s been hired by a local vampire council to take out a rogue zombie, lest the reputation of vampires be further sullied. OK, Jane wouldn’t actually use the term sullied, but I like it. Jane is what I love best about good supernatural fantasy: she’s a strong heroine but is far more than a male action hero with breasts (as opposed to heaving bosoms).

Because I enjoyed Skinwalker so much, I decided to pick up Faith Hunter’s “Rogue Mage” series. This series was good, but I didn’t like it nearly as well. Partially because it was in some ways a kissing/boinking book. As much as I liked the story, one of the twists was that mages have an environmental estrus that they cannot control. And of course the main character almost goes into heat multiple times, and at the worst possible moments. That just bugged me. I got over it, and I saw what Faith Hunter was trying to do, but unfortunately it ended up somewhat reducing my enjoyment of the story.

Which is too bad, because it was a fascinating story, set more than a century in the future, after wars and plagues have destroyed a good part of the world.

So the Rogue Mage series was good, but not one of the best I’ve read. I found Jane Yellowrock to be a much stronger character, and the world in which she lived was a bit easier to understand.

Jane Yellowrock: Skinwalker (2009)
Rogue Mage: Bloodring (2006), Seraphs (2007), Host (2007)

Lots of stuff. Too tired to write anything right now however. So here are some of the supernatural fantasy books I’ve enjoyed recently:

Mercy Thompson: Homecoming (2009) Patricia Briggs, David Lawrence, Francis Tsai, Amelia Woo

Hunting Ground (2009) Patricia Briggs

Skinwalker (2009) Faith Hunter

Skin Deep (2009) Mark del Franco

Have read mysteries and comics as well, but I like to promote good fantasy. Even if it has vampires and werewolves.

And today we’ll swing back to fantasy.

One series I’ve been following and enjoying is Liz William‘s Detective Inspector Chen series.

Chen lives in Singapore Three, in a world like but quite unlike our own, where technology and magic coexist (even if not everyone believes in the magic), the dead can make phone calls, and a demon from Hell is a visiting detective working with Chen.

The feel of Singapore Three–and Hell when they visit–is quite unlike any other world I’ve read about. Singapore Three is obviously a future version of our world–assuming it is our world, which I’m not 100% certain about. There is technology that does not exist in our world, however, the focus is upon Hell and Detective Inspector Chen’s cases which involve Hell and the after world.

And the secondary characters are fantastic as well, especially Zhu Irzh and the Badger. I’m still not clear about the Badger, and I still haven’t figured out why the Badger rings so familiar to me, as if I’d read about it in Chinese or Japanese folklore. I always mean to look it up, but never do. (And so I just looked it up. Much of the familiar folklore regarding the badger comes from Japanese folklore, not Chinese, although the badger does make an appearance in Chinese folklore.)

Of course I also quite like Chen. He’s a good man, in a job that no one else wants. He believes he’s on the outs with his goddess, but continues to worship her despite this believe–after all, any problems were of course his fault. He is also extremely moral and ethical, in a time and place where it would be quite easy to be other. And the fact that he eventually partners up with a demon without difficulty makes him even more complex.

If you like supernatural fantasy and worlds that are both familiar and strange, I highly recommend you check out Liz Williams. The only caveat I have is that there have been frequent delays in the publishing of her books–I’ve been waiting a year I think for her newest book to come out (date according to Night Shade books is the end of this month. But I’m not sure if I truly believe that. But there are already three books out in print that you should be able to find, to get your sucked into the world of Detective Inspector Chen and Singapore Three.

The Banquet of the Lords of Night & Other Stories (2004), Snake Agent (2005), The Demon and the City (2006), Precious Dragon (2007)

Night Shade Books